The 5G era will see a smart world where everything is truly connected. Modules will be of key importance in this ecosystem as they will connect upstream standard chips and downstream highly fragmented vertical applications.
According Luo Xiaoyan, VP of SIMCom, the market capacity of 5G IoT terminals in 2020 will reach about 5 million. Generally, communication modules are needed for non-mobile cellular IoT terminals to get connected. The freezing of the Release 16 standard means the official completion of 5G's first evolution. Applications including autonomous driving and industrial IoT will be achieved sooner, further realizing customers' imagination on 5G. SIMCom is actively developing 5G modules based on the Release 16 Standard that they plan to launch next year.
Due to the use of multiple frequency bands, the research and development of 5G modules face challenges mainly from RF performance and heat dissipation. Luo Xiaoyan feels that companies need to make significant breakthroughs with technological development and innovation. This requires significant investments. SIMCom has invested over $70 Million in this area.
Another point to note here is that the price of 5G Modules at the moment is relatively high. Customers in the industry are in urgent need of lower-priced 5G modules to reduce costs and facilitate large-scale deployment. In Luo Xiaoyan's view, the price of modules will reduce as the production scales up. As 5G applications become increasingly widespread and the quantity of 5G modules requires/used grows, the price of modules will gradually decrease. Meanwhile, SIMCom is also actively reducing costs by using more cost-effective components to reduce the cost of 5G modules.
Click here to view SIMCom's portfolio of the 5G Modules.
